Monday, April 16, 2007

There is an awful lot of lefty self-satisfaction over the firing of Don Imus. We shouldn’t be shocked that the guy fired in a long list of racist talk show hosts was also the only one commonly listened to in Washington who wasn’t consistently ultra-conservative. Despite the fact he is identified as ‘one of the boys’, he appeared to be the only talk show host who cared about ideas rather than just following a knee-jerk right-wing ideology. Note his interview with Senator Schumer (originally attached to this Sam Smith posting: scroll down here; part of interview also here). Can you imagine any other personality in the American media treating a politician in this way? Where’s the fawning? Where’s the ass kissing? Part of his status as ‘one of the boys’ gave him the liberty to call out bullshit when he saw it, and he was only unusual in that he exercised that liberty. Sam Smith also notes, following Peter Wallsten, that the removal of Imus means that there is now no prominent place for non-conservatives to obtain a fair shake on the radio.

Of course, Imus’ sin wasn’t about race, it was a question of blasphemy. He insulted the hair of the only true god Americans have, amateur sports teams. The nappy-haired ho who thought she could get some justice regarding whatever the Duke lacrosse team did to her (do you think for one moment that a ‘professional’ would subject herself to what she has had to go through unless something happened?), and the prosecutor who was just doing his job but failed to explain to her the ‘facts of life’ about the Old South (and is now being lynched for doing his job), learned the same lesson.